Beginnings

Getting Back in the Swing of Things

Beginning at the Beginning

This campaign is merely a chance for me to get back into gaming in general and learn Labyrinth Lord specifically. I hadn’t intended to flesh out the campaign or give any characters backgrounds as they’re not likely to live very long. But I do enjoy a good story so why not give it a go.

I’ll be taking the bones provided in the Labyrinth Lord core rule book and fleshing it out a bit for these purposes.

The Setting

I’ll be starting with “The Den of the Morlock Shaman” scenario. The mines will be placed near a small village of my own creation, just to start fleshing things out a little more.

The village of Forks is about halfway between Dolmvay and Larm, between the middle forks (hence the name!) of the river (named Black Sod in this campaign). The village itself is on the banks where the two forks meet and the mines are about an hour north in the foothills.

Forks is comparable in size to Nahm as described in the LL rules. Started as a mining town, when the minerals went dry the locals who stayed turned to farming & fishing. Due to that early prosperity, the village has a few unusual, high end features not typically found in so small a community. This includes several cobblestone paved roads, a large marina and a large meeting auditorium capable of holding the entire town. Obviously all of these were put in place by the mining company and then abandoned when they left town.

Today Forks is a tenth of it’s size during the mining rush yet the proud townspeople have not allowed the town to fall into decay. Some unneeded residential areas have been reclaimed for farms and the ore processing center (mostly warehouses) was converted to cold storage for fish. Much of the rest of the abandoned sections are still in habitable condition.

Still, it’s a small village near a remote and sometimes dangerous wilderness. For all it’s infrastructure and efficiency, Forks is ill prepared to fend off enemies. Thus we come to the Morlock Shaman scenario.

In this sort of location, it’s likely that over the years the town has dealt with it’s share of hungry animals, and passing bandits. Now however, the Morlocks have set up permanent residence nearby and as their raids against the town get bolder, the townspeople get more concerned.

I’ll be fleshing out more of the PC’s backgrounds in the future but I know at least one of them will be from the village, having left in pursuit of a career that probably took them to Domlvay. Relative of this PC will have sent correspondence that either directly or indirectly got the character involved. At the time of the letters, the raids were still against livestock with maybe one or two face-to-face skirmishes with the Morlocks. By the time the PC arrives (not sure if he’s coming with the rest of the party or not at this point), the kidnappings will have occurred. And thus we’re off…